


Hell House

by ChibiDawn23



Category: Murdoch Mysteries
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-02-23 00:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23736232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChibiDawn23/pseuds/ChibiDawn23
Summary: A panicked phone call sends George, Henry, Murdoch and Julia to the home of a famed puzzlemaker and gamemaker. The four of them find themselves investigating one suspicious death, one disappearance...and one murderous mansion.
Relationships: William Murdoch/Julia Ogden
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> The plot of this story was inspired by the CSI:NY episode, "Death House," Season 6, episode 10.

_Station House 4-Toronto, Ontario_

George Crabtree was stumped.

Henry Higgins found the constable murmuring and tapping his pencil in quick succession on his desk, head bent over the morning edition of the _Toronto Gazette_. "Good morning, George," Henry tried. His superior ignored him, which in and of itself wasn't unusual. The younger man frowned, leaning over George's shoulder. "What are you _doing_ , sir?" Henry asked him, craning his neck around to look at the paper.

George continued scratching out letters and crossing them off, muttering to himself. Henry rolled his eyes. _"_ Sir!" he yelled, slamming a hand down on George's desk, startling the older man and bringing the commotion in Station House 4 to a screeching halt.

" _What?!"_ George barked, startling so badly he snapped his pencil in half. Henry jumped back, in case George started swinging. George looked around him, first to Henry, then around the rest of the station. "What are you all looking at?" he asked, and suddenly his fellow officers all had things they needed to do.

George pinched the bridge of his nose and looked at Henry, who only looked semi-apologetic. "Sorry, Higgins," he sighed.

"No worries sir, but…what were you doing?" Henry asked. He pointed. "Whatever it was, it really had your attention. Does it have to do with a case?"

"Not a case, exactly," George explained, straightening his uniform and nodding to the paper. "Something that needs to be solved, however. Today's puzzle in the newspaper has me completely baffled."

Henry raised an eyebrow. "Sir?" he questioned, amused.

George rapped the paper with the back of his hand. "It appears to be a letter substitution cipher, but I can't figure out the key to unlocking the code."

"Have you asked Detective Murdoch?" Henry asked him. "These sorts of things are right up his alley." George looked at him sharply, and he attempted to backtrack, "N-not that you're not capable of figuring it out, I just thought-"

He was saved by the telephone on George's desk ringing, and George snapped it up, glaring at Higgins as he answered it. "Station House 4," he snapped.

The person on the other end was yelling loud enough for Henry to hear.

" _Please! You have to help me! The puzzle, I-"_

The line went dead abruptly, and George leapt up from his chair, receiver still in his hand. "Operator!" he yelled, bringing the attention of Station House 4 back to his desk again. "Where was this call from?" he demanded. He listened for the answer, then hung up. He grabbed his hat and snapped his fingers at Henry. "Let's go, Higgins."

Henry followed him out into the street. "What did the caller mean about the' puzzle'?" he questioned George.

"I'll explain when we get there. We have a stop to make first."

Henry rushed to keep up. "What stop?"

George was already straddling a bike, kicking off the pavers. "We need to find Detective Murdoch. He's out with the missus, but he won't want to miss this!"


	2. Chapter 1

Detective William Murdoch stood on the curb and surveyed the stately, redbrick home looming over them. The home looked to be at least three floors, trimmed in white moulding with large windows and ivy crawling up the turret on the side of the home. The roof tiles were green, and large windows overlooked the street. "This better be good, George," he warned Constable Crabtree.

"William," his wife, Dr. Julia Ogden, chided him gently. She looked over at George and Henry, both looking guiltily at the sidewalk. "It's quite all right, gentlemen," she promised them. She shook her head and squeezed Murdoch's arm. "Besides," she said, offering her husband a smile, "how exciting this is! This is the home of Gerald Hartley, the famous puzzlemaker!"

"I would think this would be like meeting the Prime Minister for you, sir," Henry said to Murdoch. He frowned. "Although when you've met Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell…perhaps a man such as Gerald Hartley is low on the list?"

Murdoch raised an eyebrow and glanced at his wife before sighing, "I am a bit excited to see this place. Hartley's mind is genius-all of his puzzles are amazingly clever, seeming impossible and yet always unlocked with something so simple."

Julia exchanged a wink with George. Her husband was talking with his hands, a sure sign he was more interested in the reason their morning walk had been interrupted.

Murdoch was still going on, "-to think that a simple Ottendorf cipher could be solved-"

"Sir," George coughed, "might I remind you that the person on the end of the line sounded awfully desperate for our help. Perhaps we should…" He gestured up at the house.

The detective opened his mouth, then shut it. "Of course, George. Lead the way."

* * *

The group made their way up to the front door. George rapped on it hard with his knuckles. "Toronto Constabulary!" he called. After a moment, he knocked again, harder. "Police! Open up!" He jiggled the handle. Frowning, he turned to Murdoch. "No answer, sir. Shall I-"

"That won't be necessary, sir, look!" Henry came around from the side of the house, pointing back the way he came. Murdoch, Julia, and George came down the steps and followed Henry back around. The ground was wet, the result of a soaking overnight rain. Murdoch assisted his wife in the slippery grass. Henry stopped them in front of a ground-floor window. "Here, sir," he offered. "This window's been broken. Perhaps by the person our caller was afraid of?"

Murdoch turned to Julia. She grinned. "After you," she gestured to the window. Murdoch smiled, crawling through the window and offering his wife his hand. The two constables followed the couple, finding themselves in an opulent sitting room. George whistled. "Feel as though I should've worn my dress uniform," he said under his breath, looking around at the massive fireplace, the large potted plants, and the furniture he was sure cost more than his yearly salary.

"Let's be on the lookout for our mystery caller," Murdoch suggested. He looked at George. "You say he said something about a puzzle?"

"Aye, sir, he did," George responded. "Sounded terrified. I don't know that I think Hartley's Sunday riddles are that scary, per se, but today's definitely kept me guessing."

"Sirs!"

The urgency in Henry's voice brought everyone running into another room down the wide hallway, a bedroom with a large four-poster bed and another fireplace, with floor-to-ceiling doors that opened out into a garden in the back of the house.

Murdoch joined Henry on the other side of the bed, and looked down at the body of a man, lying on the carpet. Blood seeped through his clothing from multiple exit points through his torso and lower body. Murdoch crossed himself as George uttered a, "My God."

"Is he dead?" Henry asked the two of them.

"It would appear so," Murdoch replied. He turned to his wife. "I leave that to the expert," he said to Julia, gesturing with a hand toward the body.

"I'm going to see if there's anything of use in the rest of the house," George said. "Perhaps an exit point or a murder weapon…" He eyed the body. "Perhaps more than _one_ murder weapon," he amended.

"Very good, George," Murdoch agreed. Henry busied himself looking around the room while Murdoch bent down next to his wife. "And what have you, Doctor?"

Julia was hunched over the body. "Based on rigor mortis, he's not been dead more than an hour. And these wounds, you can see, the blood is still very red, indicating it's not been long. I don't think he died long after he called Constable Crabtree," she explained. She looked around the room. "No gunshot residue or blood spatter indicative of being shot…" She frowned, unbuttoning the man's shirt to get a better look at the neat rows of holes. "Three across and four down," she said. "These are stab wounds."

Murdoch frowned, looking around the room. "But…what stabbed him?" he asked. He waved a hand around the room. "I don't see anything in this room that could have made those marks."

"And there's no smears on the floor." Julia glanced around. "No, our victim died right here, in this spot."

Henry asked the question that was on everyone's mind. "How?"

"Higgins, why don't you see if you can give George a hand? The doctor and I will continue to look around this room, see if we can make any sense of this." Murdoch nodded to Henry to give him his leave, then returned to his wife and the body. "Could he have been killed somewhere else and dumped here?" he wondered aloud.

Julia shook her head. "There's no blood coming from the doorway to this spot. And here," she waved her husband down to help her roll the body onto his side. "These wounds go all the way through. There would be blood coming into the room, and there's nothing here."

Murdoch stood up, brushing off the knees of his pants. "Well, then what did it, I wonder," he mused, looking around. "Our victim must have made the call to the station and then come into the room, there's no telephone in here."

Julia looked around, then nodded to the patio doors. "Perhaps he was searching for a way out?" she offered.

"But then why not use the front door? Furthermore," Murdoch noted, "why did he break a window to get into the house in the first place?"

"The front door was locked," Julia reminded him. "Perhaps this is a robbery gone wrong?" She turned. "Maybe there's something in his pockets." The floor creaked under her.

Murdoch heard a crack, and his eyes widened. "Julia!" he gasped, as a piece of the wall swung out, twelve angry-looking spikes headed directly for the doctor.


	3. Chapter 2

Julia's scream echoed off the walls in the room as her husband, acting quickly, grabbed her by the arm and yanked her sideways. The wall panel ceased its' swing and retracted back into the wall, blending in with the patterned wallpaper.

Murdoch held a shaken Julia in his arms. "Are you all right?" he demanded, searching her up and down. His wife was breathing heavily and she was shaking. "Julia, _answer_ me."

She nodded, swallowing. "I-I'm fine, William. Just shaken up." She took a breath and let it out. "What _was_ that?" she gasped.

Murdoch looked down on the floor. "Here." He led Julia toward the patio doors, out of the way, and unlaced his shoe. Carefully, he took aim at one of the tiles on the floor, and tossed his shoe directly into the center of it.

Henry Higgins chose to come in the room right as the panel swung down, and he swore as it sailed past him by inches. "What in the world-" he gaped.

"It's a booby trap," Murdoch said. "Look. The tile must have a pressure switch, connected to the wall panel. Our victim must have been standing on the tile and activated the mechanism. Look at the spikes."

Henry and Julia both studied the silver projectiles. "Blood," Julia said, pointing. "And when his body fell off the tile, the spikes retracted back to the wall."

"It's ingenious," Henry said. Murdoch shot him a Look, but found he couldn't disagree.

"So we know how our victim was killed," Murdoch noted. "Let's see if we can go about figuring out who he is." He looked at Julia once more. "Are you sure you're all right? Perhaps you should-"

"Don't even say it," Julia told him. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Probably best," Henry agreed. "As if there's one booby trap in one room…who's to know what's in the rest of the house?" He shook his head. "Detective, I went back to the window to see if I could determine anything, and I found something you and Dr. Ogden should see." The two followed him out of the room, suddenly very concerned about where they stepped. Henry led them back to the sitting room, to the broken window. "If you look," he explained, "there are two sets of footprints that come into the room." He bent down and pointed. "This set," he said, "looks like a man's boot. The wide tread, and the large size. But this one," he continued, nodding to another muddied print on the floor, "this is smaller. Pointier."

"A woman's shoe," Julia noted. Henry nodded in agreement.

"Well, we know what happened to the owner of the larger shoe prints," Murdoch said. "So where is the woman?"

"Speaking of people's whereabouts," Julia said to the two of them, "do we know where George is?"

Murdoch turned to Henry, but the younger constable shook his head. "I've not seen him, sir, he hasn't been in here since I've been poking about."

"George!" Murdoch called out. The name seemed to echo off the large houses's interior. He cupped his hands around his mouth and called again. " _George!"_

"Should we split up to go look for him?" Julia wondered.

"Absolutely not," Murdoch fired back. "After what happened in that bedroom, I don't want anyone wandering this place by themselves. Henry was right; if one room had a booby trap, the others may as well." He shook his head. "No, we stick together. We're looking for the woman as well. She may still be in this house somewhere."

"Not a pleasant thought," Julia whispered.

Murdoch glanced around, trying to determine the best place to start. He heard Henry call for George Crabtree again…and this time, there was a faint reply. Murdoch and Henry exchanged a glance.

"Where did it come from?" Henry wondered. "This place is so large…he could be anywhere!"

"George! Say something!" Murdoch yelled to thin air. The three waited, listening.

There was a _thud_ from somewhere on the second floor. Henry looked at Murdoch. Murdoch nodded. He turned to Julia. "Don't' move from this spot. Stay here."

"You just said-"

"I know, but at least I know in this room there's nothing bad. We've already been through here once," Murdoch told her. "Please. Stay here."

She nodded. "Keep calling for him," Murdoch told her. "We'll follow the sounds." With that, he and Henry made for the staircase, while Julia stood in the center of the sitting room, calling out George's name periodically.

Her voice grew fainter as they made their way upstairs to the second floor. "I don't hear him anymore," Henry noted worriedly.

"Stay quiet, Henry, listen very carefully." Murdoch's feet touched the landing and he found himself in the middle of a long hall that stretched to his left and right. Julia called George's name again. Murdoch waited for a count of five, but heard no response. "Higgins, stay on your toes. Enter every room carefully. Eyes alert."

The younger constable nodded, and Murdoch led the way down the hall, choosing to go right first. Every time the floor creaked under him his heart pounded, and he expected something to come flying at him. "Our puzzlemaster designed his home to be a puzzle as well," Murdoch whispered.

"More of a death trap, I'd say," Henry muttered.

Murdoch didn't argue. The first room they came to was another bedroom, this one with a daybed and chaise lounge, done in shades of purple and pink. Murdoch held up a finger, telling Henry to wait. Then, he stepped into the room.

When nothing happened, he breathed a sigh of relief, and waved Henry in to follow him. "Tread carefully, Higgins," he told him, his eyes surveying the room warily.

The younger man nodded and the two of them began a scan of the room. "Sir, take a look at this," Henry said. Murdoch turned to see him standing near the fireplace, his hand resting on the mantle. Henry pointed to a photo in a frame. "This is our victim, isn't it?" he asked.

Murdoch studied the photo. Two men stood side by side, both looking seriously into the camera lens. "The one on the right is Gerald Hartley," Murdoch noted. "I remember him from a convention awhile back that I attended. And the one on the left is our victim, very much alive."

"There's something….not quite right," Henry noted. He nodded to the wallpaper. "That spot where the wallpaper has faded."

Murdoch took note of it. "The shape of the faded place matches the shape of the picture frame. But…" He turned, looking at the window, mentally calculating. "To be in that spot to fade it like that, it would have to be in direct contact with the sun for much of the day." He looked at where Henry's hand was resting. "Did you move the frame to the left, there, Higgins?"

"No, sir. It was like this when I first saw it."

"I wonder…" Murdoch mused. He picked up the frame and set it back in the proper spot to match the faded place on the wallpaper.

The was a groan, and Murdoch and Henry leapt back to see a cloud of something spill out from the fireplace. Murdoch recoiled. "Carbon monoxide," he noted, a smell he knew _too_ well. Grabbing his handkerchief to cover his nose and mouth, the detective bent down. "Higgins, there's a room behind the fireplace!" He crawled awkwardly into the small space., and gasped. "Henry! It's George! Give me a hand!" He put his kerchief away and grabbed George Crabtree under one arm. Higgins was beside him instantly, assisting him as they pulled the unconscious constable into the bedroom, coughing and sputtering as they did.

Murdoch grabbed George's wrist. "He's got a pulse, he's alive," he said, relieved.

From downstairs, Julia yelled, "William! What's going on up there?"

"We found George! Julia, come upstairs to the first bedroom on the _right_!" Murdoch yelled back to her. He waved his hand in front of George's face, hoping to dissipate some of the gas. Henry jumped up and moved the picture frame, and the door slid shut. "Two way switch," Murdoch noted. He shook George's shoulder hard as Julia came into the room.

"My God, William, is he all right?" she cried, coming to kneel next to them.

"Carbon monoxide gas," Murdoch explained. "I suspect the closing of the door behind George triggered a switch somehow, filling the room with the gas."

"He's lucky you discovered him when you did," Julia said. "He's coming around."

Murdoch looked at the younger man as he started to stir, coughing. George looked up at the others. "What happened?" he asked quietly. "My head…I feel very faint."

"You very nearly joined our friend downstairs," Murdoch told him. "George, are you all right?"

"Give...a moment," George responded, leaning back on the floor and taking several deep breaths.

Murdoch stood up, pulled the picture frame off the mantle and removed the photograph. "Higgins, take this to Hartley's shop. See if any of his employees recognize the other man in the photo so we can get an ID on our dead man downstairs."

"Of course, sir." Higgins was looking at George intently. "Will he be-"

"He'll be just fine, Henry," Julia assured him. "Go. We'll take care of him."

The younger man nodded, and disappeared from the room. Murdoch listened carefully to the footsteps down the stairs, into the sitting room, and then silence. "George can you move?" Murdoch asked the constable. The younger man nodded. "Let's get out of this room."


	4. Chapter 3

The detective and the doctor hauled the constable down the stairs back to the sitting room, where they rested George on the couch. "This house is dreadful," Julia said. "The sooner we get out of here, the better."

"We have to find our mystery woman," Murdoch reminded her.

"That reminds me, sir," George whispered. His hand drifted to his pants pocket, and he pulled something out with two fingers. "Found…this…while I was searching the bedroom. It was snagged…on the...lock."

Murdoch reached for it, studied the object in his palm. "A piece of fabric. Floral print."

"From a dress or a blouse, perhaps?" Julia offered.

"Could be our mystery woman's," Murdoch agreed. "Though there was no one else in the room with George, suggesting she's somewhere else in the house."

"Maybe she ran," George said, closing his eyes. "Heard...us come in."

"Perhaps she's trapped somewhere like George was, or hiding." Julia shivered. "Robbery or not, I don't know that I wish this on anyone!"

"The novelty does seem to have worn off," Murdoch nodded. "It's interesting…this woman must have come in with our deceased in the other room. Hartley has a beautiful home, but to my knowledge, was never married, nor had a significant other. There's no female touches on anything in the home, even the photograph upstairs appears to be a plant to trigger the room with the gas."

"What are they after?" Julia wondered. "There's plenty of things in this room alone that one could steal and sell and make quite the profit. But nothing's been disturbed. I wonder what compelled them to break in?"

"We should get George to a doctor," Murdoch suggested, glancing at his friend. "I worry about the effects of the exposure to the gas, I don't know how long he was in that room."

"'m fine," George replied from the sofa, startling Murdoch. "Not going…anywhere."

"George, really," Murdoch began, but George raised himself to a sitting position and shook his head.

"Place is…dangerous. I won't leave the two of you here…not alone." He cracked a small smile. "'sides, I love…a good puzzle."

Julia smiled thinly as her husband shook his head. "One of those puzzles nearly got you killed, George," she reminded him, but knew the young man's mind was made up.

"I wonder how our victim and Gerald Hartley knew each other?" Julia wondered. "Did they work together, or are they related somehow…?" She rested against an ottoman on the floor.

"Higgins is going to figure that out for us," Murdoch said. "I also wonder, what of Hartley? His riddles continue to be published in the papers and his games still sell in stores, but this house doesn't look lived in."

"How could you live in a place like this?" Julia shook her head. "Every floor tile could be the trigger for something terrible!"

"If Hartley designed…it," George pointed out. "He'd know how to avoid them."

"Fair enough," Julia conceded, "but it still seems like such a ghastly way to live."

"And meanwhile, there's potentially another victim somewhere in these walls," Murdoch noted. "George, how are you feeling?"

George didn't mince words. "Like I was...hit by a wagon," he confessed. "Er, but I can...still do my job, sir."

Murdoch smiled at him. "Good man, George," he told him. "We'll give you a minute or two in the clean air, and then let's see what other puzzles in this house we can solve."

* * *

Hartley's Enigmas and Puzzles was housed in a storefront on Parliament Street. Higgins propped his bicycle against a lamppost and looked up at the signage as he headed into the building. A bell chimed overhead as the door closed behind him.

"Good morning!" a young woman greeted him from behind the counter. The store was busy, lots of people of all ages milling around, poring over jigsaw puzzles and riddle books and small brainteaser puzzles. Higgins was a bit overwhelmed by all the activity, before blinking as the woman who'd greeted him popped up right in front of him.

"Hello," he stammered. "Ah, I'm wondering if Mr. Hartley is available? I'm Constable Higgins with the Toronto Constabulary."

The woman's face fell. "Oh. I'm sorry, Constable Higgins," she began, glancing around. She grabbed Henry's arm and pulled him into a small office in the back of the store. Henry looked at her, confused. "Sorry, but I didn't want everyone to hear." She pulled the shade down on the window. "Mr. Hartley has passed away," she informed him. "Not a week ago."

* * *

Murdoch found himself in the kitchen as he paced, thinking about the case. He glanced around, taking in the appliances and the stark countertops. _Why would a bachelor go to all this work of building a house this grand_? he wondered. It seemed like so much work for one man, but then, men with money did seem to do strange things with it. He heard George and Julia in the sitting room. George was sounding much better, and Murdoch breathed a sigh of relief as he searched the kitchen cabinets, looking for a lever or a hidden switch, something that might open another hidden room in the house where their missing woman could be.

He looked around, searching for things that looked out of place, like the photograph in the upstairs bedroom. _In a kitchen as clean as this, perhaps it's a mess I should be looking for_ , he thought to himself. He turned his attention to the sink and faucets. Hanging above the sink on a rack was a set of teacups.

_Teacups…plural. Odd, once again, for a bachelor_ , Murdoch thought. He studied them carefully. There was a yellow one, followed by a blue, a green, and a blue.

Murdoch's mind was racing. _Blue…yellow….green. Two blue, one green, one yellow. What's the connection?_ He ran his fingers over the cups. _Colors. Blue and yellow make green. One green plus one yellow equals two blue._

He cupped one in his palm and felt it. _Heavy._ Curious, he did the same to the other three. He grinned. _Got it._ On the rack, he rearranged them, lightest (the green one) to heaviest (the yellow), with the two blues in the middle.

Nothing happened. His face fell. _I was so sure…_ He glanced down at the faucet. He fiddled with the knobs, turning the water on.

There was a click behind him, and he turned. Near the stove, a door he'd assumed was the pantry had popped open.

"Julia? George. I found another room!" he called into the sitting room. Unable to contain his curiosity, he stepped into the pantry.

Julia and George came into the kitchen just in time to see the pantry door swing shut, George still moving slowly. The two of them looked at each other. George made his way carefully across the kitchen tile, and tapped on the door.

"Sir? Do you see anything?" George called to him through the door.

Murdoch glanced around the small room. The pantry was nearly empty, save for two bottles of clear liquid sitting on the top shelf, far in the back.

"I don't see-" He paused, hearing something else. His eyes trailed upwards in time to watch the two jars slide off the shelf, dropping to the floor with a resounding crack.

There was a crash of breaking glass as the two jars broke, a hiss…and a spark of flame. Murdoch yelled and recoiled, backing as far into the corner of the room as he could as flames started to lick the floor.

Out in the kitchen, George and Julia exchanged a look. "William?" Julia called.

Smoke began to drift out from under the pantry door. "Sir!" George gasped. He ran to the door, trying to pull it open with the handle. The door wouldn't budge, and the smoke was acrid enough that it made his eyes water. "Fire!" he called to Julia. "We've got to get the door open!"


	5. Chapter 4

Henry Higgins was introduced by the young shopkeeper to an older man, a manager named Christopher Banks. "You say someone phoned from Gerald's home?" Banks queried. "That's odd. Gerald's been dead for a week."

"Perhaps it was this man?" Higgins offered, producing the photograph. "Does he look familiar to you?"

Banks took a look at it, and his eyes narrowed. "That's Sam Gordon," he said, handing it back to the constable. "Gordon owns Mystify, the shop over on Danforth. He and Gerald have been rivals for years. He's always accusing Gerald-or rather, _used_ to accuse-Gerald of stealing his ideas."

He glanced around. "We all thought Gordon might've had something to do with Gerald's death, at first," he admitted.

"Really?" Higgins asked, interested. "What makes you say that?"

"Gerald was in fine health right up to his death. Even said he had something big coming up-he refused to tell us all what it was going to be. He got sick suddenly, we found him right here at his desk. They called it a heart attack," Banks explained.

"What do you think Gordon was doing at Mr. Hartley's home?" Higgins asked.

Banks shrugged. "It wouldn't surprise me if he was trying to steal more of his ideas."

The office door popped open and the shopkeeper stuck her head in. "Mr. Banks, sorry, but one of the customers has a question on the two nail puzzle."

Banks nodded to Higgins. "Feel free to poke around if you like," he told him. "Maybe you'll find evidence that Gordon killed Gerald." With that, he left the young constable alone in the office.

Higgins looked around. _What would George and Detective Murdoch do_? he wondered. He started with the desk, rifling through the papers on top. A news article stuck on top of a pile in a tray caught his eye, and he picked it up. The picture accompanying the article was a photo of Sam Gordon, and a woman the caption identified as his wife, Evelyn. He skimmed the article. _Gordon plans to announce a new mind-bending puzzle in the coming months_.

Higgins frowned. Both of the gamemakers were planning to make a big announcement regarding a new game? _Interesting…_ Armed with this new information, Higgins let himself out of the store.

* * *

Meanwhile, back at the Hartley mansion, Julia and George were searching the kitchen frantically for the solution to unlock the pantry door.

"The water!" Julia reached over and turned off the water from the faucet. The two waited, but the door didn't budge. Behind it, they could hear coughing and hear crackling from the flames.

"Sir! Are you all right?" George called, as smoke continued to pour from under the door. He coughed, the effects of the smoke and the weakness from his earlier run in with the carbon monoxide keeping him from getting any closer.

"What else!" Julia looked around the kitchen. "What else solves the puzzle?" She turned the faucet off and on, opened the cupboards. Nothing changed. "We have to get him out of there!"

"Look for something else!" George told her, flicking the knobs on the stovetop on and off, opening and closing the oven doors. "Sir! Stay away from the flames and get low from the smoke!" He was sure that the detective would probably have countered with _Except the room isn't that big, George, there's nowhere to go and the flames are on the bottom where the smoke isn't!_

Julia's hands shook and her heart beat in her ears, looking around the kitchen. _Something else…something else…_ Her eyes came to rest on the teacups. "George! Here, look!" She pointed at them. "He must have rearranged them and that opened the door."

"If we can put them back in the right order….maybe that will reverse it, like the photo frame upstairs!" George nodded excitedly. "But how? What's the order?"

Julia pulled them off the hooks. "They were in order from heaviest to lightest." She rearranged them in the reverse. Both of them turned to look at the door. Nothing had happened.

"What about the colors?" George suggested. "There's two blues, a yellow, and a green. What if we put them by color?" He reached up, rearranged them, putting the blues together, and then the yellow and green.

Still nothing. "George, we have to do something!" Julia said, her voice rising.

"I know! It's got to be this, but what's the order?" George paused, thinking. "What about this?" He swapped them, yellow, blue, green, blue. "A pattern," he said.

The door swung open and Murdoch stumbled out, coughing, his suit jacket over his mouth and nose. Julia threw open the cupboards and found some baking soda in a box, emptying it over the flames licking the floor of the pantry. The cuffs of his trousers were singed and his face black from the smoke.

George helped Murdoch to a kitchen chair, got him a glass of water. "Sir, are you all right?" he asked him.

Murdoch nodded, downing the glass in one gulp. "Fine," he croaked, his voice sounding raw.

The three of them sat in silence as smoke drifted out the window Julia opened to air out the kitchen. Julia rested her head on Murdoch's shoulder as George returned with another glass of water.

"Hello?" a voice called from the sitting room. The three looked up to see Higgins come into the kitchen. He looked at the three of them, at Murdoch's singed suit. He frowned. "What happened?"

* * *

"Let's go over what we know," Murdoch said hoarsely, now seated along with George back in the safety of the sitting room, neither of them looking in tip top shape. "Both Hartley and Gordon were planning on announcing some new kind of puzzle or game. Hartley died a week ago, and Gordon is dead here in the house."

"And the wife, Evelyn, is still missing," George added.

"If Mr. Banks was correct, Gordon was-" Higgins paused, rubbing a hand over his face. "Gordon was here looking for what Hartley's new game may have been."

"Industrial espionage, as it were," Julia proposed.

Murdoch was deep in thought. "Perhaps we need the coroner's report on Gerald Hartley," he said. "To determine if there was any evidence of foul play…Higgins, what are you doing?"

The younger man was studying the top of his helmet. He frowned. "Sorry, sir, but there's water dripping from somewhere, right in this spot."

"What?"

Julia reached a hand over, stuck it in the air between Higgins' head and the ceiling. She flicked her hand. "Henry is right," she said. "There's water coming from somewhere."

"What's above this room?" Murdoch wondered.

"Nothing, sir," George said. "When I searched the upstairs, there was only a hall, but the rooms were all…" He trailed off. The rest of the group waited. George snapped his fingers. "The rooms are all on the other side of the house. But maybe…maybe there's something on this side _behind_ the wall!"

"Water…"Julia looked up. "Another hidden room? Another trap?"

Murdoch got to his feet, swaying a bit. "We need to find that room. That could be where Evelyn Gordon is!" The four of them raced for the stairs, George and Murdoch taking them a bit slower than they usually would have, and found themselves on the second floor landing. Murdoch ran a hand over the wall, tapping it every few inches or so with his knuckles. "It doesn't feel hollow," he noted.

"No, there's definitely something there sir, look!" Higgins was further down the hall, crouched near the baseboard. He pointed to the baseboard, where there was a damp spot on the hall carpet.

"The room may have been waterproofed somehow," Murdoch posed. "But there's no door, how did Evelyn get in?"

"I've got that one, sir," George said, standing next to an end table at the end of the hall. "I've started thinking a bit like our Mr. Hartley, and I think I know how to get in." He climbed up on the table, coming eye level with the moulding where the wall met the ceiling. "This block, here," he called down. "It doesn't match." He pointed to one in the corner, a flower, with leaves and a stem pointing down toward the floor. The one he was standing by, the stem was turned to the right. He reached up, shifted the block so the stem was facing down.

A panel in the wall slid back. "Well done, George," Murdoch praised him as the constable jumped down. Higgins supported him as he swooned a bit. "Let's get going. Be cautious." Murdoch led the way through the door, up a short flight of stairs, into a hidden room. "This must be that turret you can see from the outside," he noted. They came out into a small, round room, sparsely furnished.

"William, look at the wall," Julia said, pointing. "The wallpapering…it's uneven."

"Like they were trying to cover something up," Higgins said. "A door, perhaps?"

"We need to get it open," George said, pounding on the wall. He pressed his ear to it. "Sir, I can hear running water behind this!"

"This is definitely it!" Murdoch said urgently. "We've got to find the lock mechanism! Spread out!"

The group began investigating the room, moving knickknacks, opening and closing the curtains. Murdoch stood in the center of the room, while George banged on the wall, looking for a loose board or a chink in the plastering.

Murdoch's eyes fell on a chair, one of the few pieces of furniture in the room. He frowned. _Odd_. Everything in Hartley's home was well-placed, except for the chair, which sat in a position facing the doorway. _Why not toward the window, to see the view, or the paintings on the opposite wall?_

He looked down. And he spotted it. Faint drag marks, in the dust of the floorboards. He gripped the back of the chair and pulled it along the marks, returning it to its' original position.

"Whoa!" George nearly toppled through the wall as a door swung open. Water gushed from some circular piping on the walls. He grabbed onto the door frame to steady himself and looked down.

A woman was about five feet below him, treading water, soaked through. "H-help me!" she sputtered.

"I've got her." Henry brushed past George and jumped into the pool, grabbing the woman under the arms. Julia supported Murdoch who was holding onto George's belt, as Henry did his best to lift the woman into George's grip. They pulled her out, then dragged Henry out after.

They lay in a heap on the floorboards. The woman, in a flowered blouse and dark pants, was crying hysterically in George's arms. Murdoch was half in Julia's lap. He gave Higgins a weak smile. "Well done, Higgins," he told him.

Henry smiled, resting back on his elbows.


	6. Epilogue

Later that evening, Murdoch, the two constables, and Julia sat in Murdoch's office, relaxing after the day's events. Evelyn Gordon had been taken to the hospital, too traumatized from the day's events to be worth much as a witness. Murdoch had an appointment to speak with her the following morning.

"So Hartley's puzzle _was_ the house," George said in disbelief.

Murdoch nodded. "I suspect that if we do a bit more digging, we'll discover that Hartley floated a rumor of this ultimate puzzle to lure the Gordons into his home, and created the puzzle rooms to rid himself of his competition."

"But what of Hartley's death?" Julia wondered. "Murder, or natural causes?"

"Henry will be looking into that tomorrow," Murdoch said. He sighed. "After today, I don't much feel like doing anything. My mind is..."

"Fried?" George offered. Murdoch raised an eyebrow as Julia hid a smile. "Sorry, sir, bad joke," George apologized.

Higgins sat, deep in thought. Finally, he broke into a grin. "You have to admit," he said. "Despite it all, that was kind of _fun_."

His superiors both gave him a stern look. He backtracked, "I-I mean think about it. An entire house, designed as a puzzle. Hartley could have been on to something there," he said. "Like…rooms you are trapped in that you must figure out how to escape."

"I think I've had enough of that for one day," George muttered, and Murdoch agreed with him.

"You lot look like you've been through the ringer!" Inspector Thomas Brackenreid rapped on Murdoch's door and let himself in, the evening edition of the paper tucked under his arm. "What happened at the Hartley house, then?"

" _Hell_ house, sir?" George countered under his breath. Murdoch coughed. Brackenreid eyed the two of them. No one in the room offered the Inspector any more on the case, the events of the day still too fresh and too unbelievable to put into words.

Brackenreid paused. "Right then, I'll wait for the report," the inspector said. "Oh, Crabtree, thought you might like the puzzler in the evening edition; Margaret said it was a real stumper."

Murdoch and Julia exchanged a look as George leapt up, grabbed the paper from his superior, and dropped it in the trash bin. "I've had enough puzzles to last me a lifetime," he said.

The group broke out into nervous laughter.


End file.
